


i know where i'm going now, i'm not so lost

by crispyjenkins



Series: Crispy Writes [12]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: (Din doesn't correct anyone not Mandalorian), Autistic Din Djarin, Character Study, Children of the Watch Culture and Customs (Star Wars), Culture study, DMAB NB Din, Force Sensitive Mandalorian Culture, Force Sensitive Paz Vizsla, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Grogu Name Reveal, Hurt/Comfort, In a way, M/M, Mando'a Language (Star Wars), Post-Season/Series 01, The Creed Respected, Trans Din Djarin, Vode to Friends to Lovers, accidental misgendering, minor blood and injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29934429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crispyjenkins/pseuds/crispyjenkins
Summary: “Ruus’alor?”Din slurs, their blinking slow and pinched, all while Paz’s stomach drops through the floor.“Me’bana...?”Belatedly, Paz realises Din likely isn’t even fully conscious and probably won’t remember this later, which is for the best considering he doesn’t think they’ve noticed they’re helmetless.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda, Din Djarin/Paz Vizsla
Series: Crispy Writes [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960120
Comments: 20
Kudos: 136





	i know where i'm going now, i'm not so lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluebells](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebells/gifts).



> surprise [that post](https://crispyjenkins.tumblr.com/post/644775987241943040/post-season-1-din-snippet) was dinpaz i hope nobody was hoping for bobin 🥲 rated T for canon-typical descriptions of injury because i’m predictable  
> (more notes at the end, needed the extensive Mando’a up here)
> 
> **Mando’a:**  
>  _tihaar_ — Mandalorian strong clear spirit made from fruit  
>  _buy’ce_ — “helmet,” specifically a traditional Mandalorian one  
>  _kov’nyn_ — "headbutt", a Mandalorian show of affection, a "forehead kiss", (with the sl. "keldabe kiss" usually referring to a violent headbutt à la Jango and Obi-Wan's fight on Kamino in AotC)  
>  _gai bal manda_ — Mando’a adoption ceremony, lit. “name and soul”  
>  _kute_ — an undersuit, bodyglove, etc., something worn under armor  
>  _alor_ — “leader”, “chief”, “commander”, in this case, the leader of the covert  
>  _ruus’alor_ — “sergeant”, leader of a squad  
>  _ka’ra_ — “stars”, “space”, used here as literal space but also as more of the meeting point between gods/the dead and physical space, à la the Celtic "veil between worlds"  
>  _haat’goten_ — “true birth”, headcanon second rite of passage for the Children of the Watch, based on the _verd’goten,_ “soldier birth”, which was a rite of passage into adulthood at around 13 for humans. i liked the idea that swearing to the creed that the Children of the Watch follow came later in life, when they reached the age of majority for their species. here, it’s 20 years for humans, even though from 13 onwards they are considered an adult.  
>  _beroya_ — “bounty hunter”; in this context: a specific position in the tribe/covert meant to earn funds and track down stolen beskar.  
>  _verd/ika_ — “soldier”, “warrior”, with suffix _ika:_ “little soldier” or the rank “private”; in this context, a squadmate younger than the sergeant  
>  _Ka’ra_ — an ancient Mandalorian story, ruling council of fallen kings, “stars”  
>  _beskar’gam_ — Armour made of beskar, “Mandalorian Iron” that was actually probably a steel alloy  
>  _vod/e_ — “brother/s”, “comrade/s”, “sibling/s”, technically gender neutral but used most often in fandom as “brother/s”  
>  _buir/e_ — “parent/s”, also gender neutral  
>  _darmando’ad/e_ — “no longer a mandalorian” as a proper noun, from darmanda which is the state of not being mandalorian  
>  _alii’vod_ — "sibling", a combination of _aliit_ ("clan") and _vod_ ("sibling") to specify a clan sibling versus the more general use of _vod_  
>  _“me’bana?”_ — “What happened?”, “What’s happening?”

Chalmun still owes them for that one thing with the five-footed dewback and a tanker of tainted spice, and the only thing the Wookiee hates more than being sober is owing someone a favor.

There’s an claviger suite attached to the back of the cantina that Chalmun never uses, preferring to pass out in the private lounge behind the bar when he’s not terrorising his patrons, and giving the bounty hunter a free bunk to crash in sometimes is far cheaper than trying to repay a debt in spotchka and fake _tihaar._ It’s a single room smaller than most inns, but it has a bed, and a stove, and is protected on three sides by twenty-foot clay walls; the window doesn’t have a pane or even a curtain, but is so inaccessible that Din can remove their _buy'ce_ and actually sit in the sunshine for a while.

Not that they’re thinking about that when they stumble into the suite after leaving the Razor Crest with Peli, having to lean on the built-in clay sideboard skirting the room as they fumble for the release catch on their helmet. The kid makes a distressed little noise from his satchel, tiny hand holding onto the arm that’s barely keeping Din upright; maybe they should have let Peli look them over.

Exhaustion clawing at the back of their eyes, Din drops their _buy'ce_ onto the sideboard far less gently than they’d intended to, and focuses on not doing the same to the kid as they unsling him from their shoulder. They set him next to their _buy'ce_ before trying to work their jetpack off, the kid reaching up like he can help.

Something that tastes like pure fucking _relief_ floods them again, that they had somehow made it off Nevarro, that Moff Gideon hadn’t succeeded in taking the kid from them, that after some rest, the kid had been _fine._

Sucking in a shuddering breath, Din leans back on the counter and slumps down to press their forehead to the kid’s, who coos worriedly and rapidly pats their cheeks with both hands. They chuckle and stroke over his head, pressing further into the _kov’nyn._

_You are as its father._

Somehow, the Armorer had known they had been keeping the kid at a distance, that Din had spent the last two years hiding their face from the single most important being in their life. The Armorer doesn’t mince her words, but they are rarely what they appear to be on the surface: to Din's companions, the Armorer had told Din to keep protecting the child, to keep caring for him until they find the Jedi. To Din, she had all but ordered them to stop futzing about and show their kid their face already.

_You are a clan of two._

The hyperjump from Nevarro to Tatooine is a little too short to have properly prepared for and discussed the _gai bal manda_ with the kid, but Din had figured that if they had let a droid see their face for medical treatment, they're allowed to remove their _buy'ce_ for the child they have all intentions of adopting. 

The kid hadn’t left their side as they patched themself up the best they could with the depleted supplies on the Razor Crest, glued to their hip or tucked into the junction of their neck and shoulder so he could keep one clawed hand on Din’s face while they slept. Din only put the helmet back on because they couldn't very well walk across Mos Eisley to Chalmun’s without it.

Now, the kid whines as Din pulls away to gingerly untangle themself from their cape and unclip their cuirass, and is relieved to see nothing had bled through their thin bacta patches. They had done their best to wash off the blood, but with only a sonic on board, nothing could be done for their _kute._ They make a mental note to ask Peli if they can use one of her equipment sprayers, though they’d rather not think about how much she’ll charge for the privilege. 

Their gloves follow their cape and jetpack onto the counter, the kid waddling back and forth across the length of it trying to follow them as they move about the room. Din doesn’t know where he’s getting all that energy, when he had been so exhausted after saving them from the incinerator trooper. 

They don’t get to the rest of their armor before their body insists they get off their feet, and Din crashes sideways onto the bunk that feels like heaven despite the “mattress” being half as thick as the shitty one on the Razor Crest. Grunting, they decide anything is better than being upright, and reach out to scoop the child up from the counter; their arm only shakes a little, and it’s only a little clumsily that Din tucks him against their chest. The kid luckily doesn’t fuss too much aside from a few chirps, though he does wriggle around a little so his head is under their chin before sleepily settling a hand on their throat.

Din carefully strokes over his ears again, noting how dirty their hands still are, and sets a timer on their blessedly still-working vambrace. Just a few hours of rest, then they’d get cleaned up.

When Paz had settled on Tatooine with nothing but his armor and a commlink the Armorer may be too dead to use, not even a ship to his name, he had hated Din Djarin almost more than he hated the Empire. The Tribe had already had so little, so few; could they ever recover from the destruction on Nevarro? Did the rest even find other coverts?

Now, nearly two years later and still no word from the Armorer, or anyone else, Paz knows that even if it had saved the entire covert, he would not have been able to live with himself if he had not gone to a foundling’s aid — if he had not gone to Djarin’s.

This was not the Way.

It didn’t help that his relationship with Djarin was already so fraught, their clan had been one of many in the fighting corps under House Vizsla, but he and Djarin were the only remnants to survive the Purge long enough to find other Mandalorians. Despite growing up together, sharing the same meals in the same mess hall, sleeping in the same barracks, even being on the same squad for the Night of a Thousand Tears, they haven’t ever really been _friends._

Paz has always had a temper, which is no excuse, but their scuffle in the Forge was far from the first time they’d raised blades against each other. It was, however, one of the worst — Paz had never gone after their helmet before. 

It had been ten years since they escaped Concordia together and found the Mandalorians headed for Nevarro, who’s members all came from different Houses, and who had always found it so strange that he and Djarin had escaped _together,_ yet hardly spoke to each other whenever Djarin was actually at the covert. Paz had been asked if they had a falling out, if they had only met after the Purge like the rest of them, if they were bitter exes forced to cohabitate without any other place to go. 

Djarin was never a talker even as a kid, and Paz was a little too fucked up inside to be the one to reach out. Not that the Armorer, the closest thing their covert had to an _alor,_ didn’t try to weasel the truth out of Paz on multiple occasions, but that’s just the thing: there wasn’t a reason. Just that at one time Paz had been Djarin’s _ruus’alor,_ and Djarin had been so ingrained in his squad that it was almost debilitating when they were out of commission. But they were never _friends._

It didn’t help that at one time, Djarin had been the one to haul his body, armor and all, from the wreckage of the Vizsla estate just before the Imps blew it and any other survivors to the _ka’ra._

Maybe Paz hated that Djarin had forced him to live when every other member of his clan was dead, maybe he hated that Djarin couldn’t save anyone else. Maybe he hated that even when dying from fever on the way to Nevarro, Djarin still wouldn’t let him remove their _buy'ce_ , and had almost left Paz alone again.

They scuffled all the time as cadets, both too headstrong in their own ways, Paz loud and Djarin quiet, but at one time, Paz had been the last person to see Din’s face, the night before their _haat’goten._ Even though Paz could not return the favor, even though no one outside the medics had seen Din without their _buy'ce_ since they were thirteen —long before they swore the Creed, long before everyone else usually did— Din had still chosen their _ruus’alor_ as the last to know their face. 

Din had even thanked him, and Paz doesn’t remember if he had plucked up the courage to say anything back. It’s been many years since then.

After Nevarro, after watching his home be destroyed all over again, Paz had stowed-away on the first ship he could find and ran to the nearest system, like a _coward._ More fool he, to have used the same slander against their _beroya,_ who was the only reason their covert had been able to stay in one place for so long.

Paz knows most of the foundlings were killed in the initial attack, but he also knows that some _made it out;_ he had not been one of _verd_ that fled the covert with a foundling in his care. Maybe that was better, when the old slave’s quarters Paz had gotten off a Toydarian for cheap is three rooms and a fresher, and not nearly secluded enough to protect a foundling. 

After outfitting durasteel plates over all the windows to keep out the sun and the chill, to keep away from the prying eyes, Paz has spent the last year feeling safe enough to even remove his armor completely sometimes. The Tusken Raiders don’t steal from slaves, and the jawas don’t come this far into Mos Eisley, and the slaves and freedmen around Paz know better than to try and break into the home of a Mandalorian.

But it still isn’t any place for a child, and he hopes those that had become the closest thing to clan he had after the Purge had found safer havens better blessed by the _Ka’ra_ than the dustball Paz had ended up on.

At least the kids in the slave district seem to like him, trying to pull him into their games while their parents timidly ask him for help rethatching roofs, to fix old vaporators that barely work in the first place. It’s not the same as tending to the foundlings as Paz often used to, but it’s nice.

After spending the morning helping the Twi’lek single mother in the unit above his build a cradle from stolen scrap, he returns to his tiny kitchen with a small loaf of actual bread that she had given him in thanks, and makes midmeal with the sunlight streaming through his kitchen window. He’s between jobs so he can take his time trying to recreate a dish from his childhood that’s never quite spicy enough, and only when it’s completely ready does he slide the panelling over the window closed and settle in to eat at the table he barely fits at.

Growing up in a fighting corps, Paz had relished in his height and bulk, and it had certainly helped keep him and Djarin alive until they found others from the Tribe, after the Purge. All the better to protect the foundlings in the covert, and take jobs when their _beroya_ was too injured or sick to. Now, shoved against the wall with a table so small he has to set his _buy'ce_ on the stove to have room for his plate, Paz does envy the slighter builds of the rest of his clan.

A low headache starts at the base of his skull, and Paz curses both Tatoo I and II, because he can’t be _that_ dehydrated having stayed inside all day; his body doesn’t seem to have gotten that memo.

At first, he thinks nothing of the little flashes of memories that come with the headache, glimpses of silver _beskar’gam,_ an amban rifle propped against a bed, the cool beige walls of House Vizsla’s estate tucked far into the countryside in an attempt to divorce themselves from the Vizslas obsessed with the Darksaber in Concordia’s capital. Paz had just been thinking about the Tribe, and missing the act of eating back-to-back with his most trusted friends, it wasn’t so strange to remember bits of Djarin as well.

With a sigh, Paz scrubs over his face and considers a stim as the pounding at his temples starts in earnest. Behind his eyelids, he sees a grey cowl loose around a pale throat, a deep brown _kute_ with a collar not quite tall enough to hide the clean pink scar that curves from jugular to ear; with a helmet, of course, and a cape, it would be completely covered.

Paz hasn’t thought about that scar since his fingers had curled under the chin of Djarin’s _buy'ce_ and tried to yank it off. Sithspit, but that feels like a lifetime ago. Even further back, before the Purge in another life entirely, Paz had been the one to clamp that wound closed with shaking hands and pray he wouldn’t have to watch a _vod_ bleed out through his fingers.

He hadn’t even sworn the Creed yet, had he? No, no his twentieth had still been a few days away when he took one last mission before his _haat’goten_ with the few others on his squad that hadn’t sworn the Creed yet, either. Djarin hadn’t seen their mark’s bodyguard come up behind them with a knife, and Paz hadn’t fired his blaster fast enough.

At his _haat’goten_ ceremony that Djarin couldn’t even attend, Paz had been given the highest honors of his age group for saving a _vod_ in the field, and he remembers almost refusing it, because if he had done his job right, he wouldn’t have _needed_ to hold Din together until a medic could get to them.

Paz drops his hands from his face, realising that he hadn’t turned on any lights and his soup has gone cold. It’s been years since he thought of them as _Din._

Unwarranted, something shoves into his brain, something distinctly not his own memories, and Paz gets a view of a small room not unlike his own, with walls and counters made of the same rough clay, as the scene shifts like he’s seeing it through someone else’s eyes. A very _short_ someone, from the strange angle of it all.

The view swings around to a blur of brown and silver that could almost be human-shaped, loosely curled up on tan sheets, and completely unmoving. The owner of Paz’s new eyes shuffles up the bed to the maybe-human’s shoulder, purposefully not looking higher than their stubbled chin, and a tiny, three-fingered hand reaches out as if it were Paz’s own, to tug the human’s collar down enough that he can see the pale scar curving from throat to ea—

His eyes fly open as he scrambles up and knocks his cold meal to the ground, soup turning to mud on the sandy floor.

It’s been two years and an entire lifetime, but Paz knows that’s Din, knows their unpainted beskar, and Paz has never seen that room before, but that was _Din,_ laying on a mattress spattered with blood. 

The gentle, warm assurance in his bones that has guided Paz’s entire life (that he’s secretly always thought of as the _Ka’ra)_ guides him again, pushing against his mind until he can accept that this isn’t some weird hallucination, and Djarin might... actually need his help.

A relief and excitement that doesn’t belong to him shoves aside the _Ka’ra_ to make room for itself, that tiny hand moving and pointing to the beskar helmet next to the bed, as if Paz needed more confirmation of the owner’s identity. But the small green thing isn’t done, turning to bodily pull at Djarin’s limp hand until it’s clear they aren’t going to respond.

The sight is followed immediately by an image of the Razor Crest, docked in a desert mechanic’s hangar with a red-haired woman running a diagnostic on one of the engines. The signage is all in Huttese, but surely it’s too much to hope that the Crest is on Tatooine: life has never been that easy for Paz.

But then what can only be Djarin’s foundling shows him something else, the outside of a cantina swarmed by species of all sorts, and no one can spend more than a few days on Tatooine without knowing Chalmun’s on sight.

Kriff, alright, sure, Paz thinks, bewildered by himself as he shoves his _buy'ce_ back on and goes around his apartment collecting every piece of medical supplies that he’s been stocking away in preparation to rejoin the Tribe. He won’t know how bad Djarin is until he gets there, but if it’s dire enough that their weird psychic foundling is psychically asking for help from the only Mandalorian in six parsecs, Paz would rather be prepared for anything. 

He shoves it all in a bag and grabs his blaster rifle from the rack on the wall by the door; he had lost his canon on Nevarro And misses it dearly, but it would have been too conspicuous, anyways.

First, he’ll find the Razor Crest, prove that he’s not just hallucinating, and maybe that woman will give him a lead.

Luckily, human mechanics are few and far between in Mos Eisley, the trade mostly dominated by Rodians and Toydarians, and in the afternoon swelt, Paz has three different people all point him towards a shop not too far from Chalmun’s. He hasn’t got any more image flashes or emotions that aren’t his, but he doesn’t need them to find a quarry.

He ducks into Peli Motto’s shop less than an hour after setting out, three pit droids scampering through the rusty crates not unlike foundlings in the covert; Paz shoves away the thought, and instead wonders when Djarin had started letting droids anywhere near their ship.

Something like relief slams into him when the red-haired woman from his... vision immediately comes in from the hangar, and the way she pauses to look him over with benign recognition only fills him with more hope.

“Now, you’re far too tall to be my Mando.”

Paz inwardly splutters. _Her_ Mando? “I can assure you we have not met before,” he returns evenly, pretending to look around the messy shop while instead watching Motto closely.

She snorts, hands on her hips. “Well then, Big Blue, what can I do for ya?”

“You ever work on an old Razor Crest?” He can’t quite see into the hangar, but Motto perks up and gives him another once-over.

“You a friend of Mando’s, then?”

“You could say that.”

“Well, tell him to come get his stupid ship so I can actually get back to work, he’s two days overdue,” she grumbles, but rubs her chin worriedly. “And that kid of his, I hope he’s alright; usually he leaves the kid with me when he takes a job, huh?”

The “two days” does nothing to ease Paz’s uneasy heart, except that it also means Djarin had been here _less than a week ago._ “When did you last see them?”

“Hmmph, and how do I know you’re not some bounty hunter after the kid, huh?” Motto gently kicks away one of the pit droids that’s running a little too close, and Paz sighs loud enough to hear over the vocoder.

“I’m from their covert,” he admits through gritted teeth, knowing he’ll get nowhere without revealing at least a little bit. “From Nevarro.”

His gamble that Djarin would have told Motto _something_ if they trusted her to watch their foundling pays off as Motto relaxes and looks back into the yard. “He came by and dropped off the Crest three days back, ‘said he had a place to kip down for a while, and left with the kid. ‘Haven’t seen him since, but,” she clicks her tongue, “he didn’t look so good, if I’m honest.”

“What do you mean?” Paz gives up the pretense that he’s not wholly invested in their conversation, turning towards Motto fully even as he tries to keep the tension from his body language; he can hardly remember the last time he’d had to concentrate on something like that.

“He said he’d been in a scuffle,” Motto says, shifting on her feet before nodding to herself and waving Paz to follow her into the hangar where, indeed, the Razor Crest is docked and seemingly in working order. “He seemed alright on his feet, and the kid was fine, but he was stiff, y’know? Still had some blood on his armor and such.”

Not that Paz is _surprised,_ he had seen the state of Djarin’s sheets, but the confirmation still makes his stomach churn. If Djarin has been out for three days, who’s been looking out for the kid?

“Do you know where they went? Where they’re staying?”

“‘Afraid not, Big Blue.” Sighing and shaking her head, she raps her knuckles on the closed ramp of the Crest. “He had a leaking Co2 line, they couldn’t stay on the ship like they normally would while I repaired it, but he never tells me where he stays when he doesn’t stay here.”

Paz runs a gloved hand over the Crest’s hull, looking up at it and wondering if Djarin still had the failsafe in the lockpad in case other members of the covert needed access. “They’ve been here a lot, then?”

“Every few months or so, ’started last year sometime. I know he’s a bounty hunter, but should his ship really be taking that much damage? I had to completely replace a nav unit this time around.”

“No, that’s just how Mando is,” Paz sighs and takes a step back to try the failsafe. The pad beeps at him a few times, but then actually lights up green and disengages the airlock with a gust of steam.

Motto chokes on a shouted, “Watch it!”, and quickly moves out of the way of the ramp. “Well, if I needed any more proof...”

“I’m going to look inside, see if I can’t find where they’re staying. You sure they didn’t mention anything about where they planned on going?”

She rubs the back of her neck and tries to recall, red curls bouncing with the movement. “He mentioned Chalmun’s, but everybody goes to Chalmun’s. He did say he didn’t have a job yet, though, and he really would have left the kid with me if he picked one up. Wait, if you haven’t seen him, how’d you know to come looking?”

Paz pauses halfway up the ramp and glances back at her. “... A hunch.”

Motto gives a great snort. “You two are definitely related.”

What systems Djarin hasn’t encrypted tell Paz nothing about where they’d gone, but he does get a full readout of just how many things they’ve had to repair on the Crest the last two years. Kriff, but that kid seems to be more trouble than they’re worth.

He has to pause and reprimand himself for such a thought, disappointed he could think that about a child, and goes back down to the main deck. The little sleeping alcove is empty save for a slightly blood-stained blanket, and there’s a single box of ration bars in the store hold, though there are quite a few empty babyfood jars collecting in a crate by the carbonite freezer. Djarin seems to be taking good care of them, at least.

The medkit is almost kriffing empty, just a couple of stims and water tablets, as well as the detritus of... too many used bactapatches; Paz hopes the discarded packaging isn’t all from Djarin’s last scuffle, but they had always enjoyed disappointing him.

Sighing, Paz stands in the middle of the hold and looks around in a sweeping circle, though he’s not expecting to find anything. Though his mind protests to the idea, this really would be the time for Djarin’s little womp rat to give him something else to work with, but they haven’t tried since he left his quarters.

He’ll just have to start at Chalmun’s and work his way through all the inns in Mos Eisley, he supposes, running a hand over his helmet in place of pushing back his hair.

Wait.

Anything Paz might have learned about the Jedi had come from before the Great Purge, and he’s been around the block enough times to know his clan’s opinion of them was especially contentious, what with the Darksaber and Pre Vizsla and Death Watch, but Paz does remember bits and pieces. He had been, what, ten standard when the Clone Wars ended with the Empire taking over? He’s never seen an actual lightsaber, and his sect of the Vizslas had already broken away from Pre’s when he had been born, so he’s never seen the Darksaber, either. But his _buire_ used to scoff, because Pre’s followers rarely if ever had pure beskar: they much preferred alloys easier to access off Mandalore, and easier to discard. Against _darmando’ade_ like the duchy, Death Watch’s armor had been satisfactory, but did nothing against a Mandalorian’s greatest enemy. What good was it to have the Darksaber if your own armor couldn’t even repel it? And the younger Kryze, she encountered Jedi and Sith without her _buy'ce_ how often during the war? It’s a miracle the entirety of Death Watch hadn’t been Force-mind-controlled at one time or another.

Stood in the dark of Djarin’s ship, sufficiently out of sight if Motto is still waiting by the ramp, Paz haltingly reaches for the release under his chin. If pure beskar can protect from Jedi mind tricks, surely that meant it stopped Djarin’s fondling from... doing whatever it is they were doing.

Paz turns his back to the hold just in case and carefully kneels on the metal floor, setting his _buy'ce_ next to his knees. He feels a little silly, waiting for Djarin’s weird green baby to telepathically communicate with him, but, well, he _had_ found the Razor Crest, just where the kid had shown him.

His old _alor,_ his _alii’vod,_ she had been the only one to know just how often the _Ka’ra_ seemed to speak to her baby brother, which, in reality, hadn’t been all that often. But Paz’s “bad feelings”, his quick reflexes where his size might have made him stupid and slow, all the little things started to add up until Beske felt the need to warn him to hide it better; no telling what their enemies would do with even the suspicion that Paz might be more vulnerable than the rest of his clan.

_“But it is not something to fear,”_ Beske had said, _“it is something to learn to control. To ignore the Ka’ra is to ignore your ancestors, it is to ignore every Vizsla that’s marched away*.”_

He’s not so stupid to have missed the parallels with the Jedi’s "Force", for all that he _tried_ not to, and the nudges from the _Ka’ra_ had lessened greatly after his _haat’goten,_ after he swore the Creed.

When it takes barely a minute for that rush of alien excitement to smash its way into his head again, Paz grunting at the force of it, he has to wonder how his ancestors had become weak to **_beskar._ **

The kid’s excitement levels out into a mental image of Chalmun’s, and Paz sighs as he tries to tell the kid that doesn’t help.

He only gets a strange coo for his trouble, and then, as if he were tottering barely a foot off the ground, Paz’s view of the cantina swings to the left and follows the alley down side of the building to the walled courtyard out back. A pair of boots without greaves steps into view and kicks at a loose panel in the metal skirting of the wall, and part of the clay slides away to reveal a proper door, like a cliché rebel-spy holovid.

Paz doesn’t get to see the code punched in before he’s being yanked back into his own body, but that’s fine, slicing in won’t be a problem.

_‘Thanks, kid,’_ he tries to tell them, and must succeed, since he gets a pleased chirp of,

_‘Grogu,’_ back.

_‘Alright, Grogu, I’ll be there soon.’_

Another chirp and a heightened sense of urgency is his only response.

Slipping his _buy'ce_ back on, Paz pushes to his feet and thumps out of the Razor Crest to raise the ramp and lock it all back up. Motto isn’t waiting in the hangar, but pops out of the shop as soon as she hears him.

“Find anything useful?” she asks, sounding as if she doesn’t care about the answer one way or another, but Paz has spent a lifetime reading people without expressions, and knows better. 

He grunts, adjusting his rifle strap. “Maybe,” he allows. “It’s a lead, at least.”

“Then I won’t keep you, but you mind telling Mando he owes me for the back-up in business? And for making me worry about the kid.”

“I’ll be sure to pass on the message,” Paz says, mouth quirked, and makes his way back out to the street.

He isn’t sure if it’s Djarin’s doing or Chalmun’s, but it takes Paz almost ten minutes to slice into the door to the courtyard, and while he has to grudgingly accept that he’s impressed by the complexity, it may have been faster to just climb the wall.

But that would be disastrously conspicuous, and he does eventually get the door open, just to kick it closed behind himself. The courtyard is mostly empty, aside from a few crates of empty bottles, and a speeder bike in absolute pieces in the far corner; there’s a tiny building attached to the cantina made of the same clay as the walls, and had probably been meant as quarters for a custodian, or the owner maybe. The flight of stone steps with horrendously narrow corners (Paz can barely get his shoulders through, is this why Chalmun never uses it?) doesn’t even have a gate, but there’s a door at the top of the stairs, with a far simpler lockpad than the one for the courtyard.

He almost expects to have a blaster, or at least a vibroblade shoved in his face upon easing into the room, but instead there’s a distressed warble from the right, and he gets a good look at Djarin’s foundling for the first time, sitting on the bed by the pillow.

Maker, but they’re adorable.

And they’re just as tiny as he had suspected, not even as tall as Djarin’s shoulders are wide, and–

Paz yanks his whole head away as his heart leaps into his throat. He’s an idiot, he should have known Din wouldn’t have their _buy'ce_ on, he can clearly see it on the sideboard next to them, but he really hadn’t prepared himself for the possibility that he’d _have_ to see them without their helmet.

It’s been two decades since he had known their face. 

Grogu’s helpless whine reminds Paz why he’s here and forces him to shake off his own fear; he drops his rifle onto the sideboard by Din’s cuirass and tugs off one of his gloves, moving to the bed where Grogu is reaching out for him with absolute trust. 

Before doing anything else, Paz lifts one of Din’s hands and presses his bare fingers to their wrist, checking that they even still have a pulse. Thank the _Ka’ra,_ they do, though it’s a little too fast, jerking under Paz’s fingertips. Okay, they’re alive at least, and can probably survive another five minutes while Paz gets the kid sorted.

He gently picks Grogu up, and moves him to the counter next to Din’s helmet as he looks around the rest of the room quickly. He almost chokes in relief that there are ration bar wrappers and a canteen by one of Din’s bags, another canteen by their pillow. Kriff, okay, he thinks, okay, the kid has been eating and has had access to water, this was good.

Grogu tries to resist Paz pulling away, little claws grasping at his glove, and he whines up at Paz until he relents and leaves one hand on his head between his floppy ears.

“Alright, kid,” he says, crouching down to be almost eye-level with him, though even then he towers above him, “are you alright? Are you hurt?”

Cooing, Grogu scrunches his wrinkly face in confusion, before grabbing Paz’s wrist and trying to shove him towards the bed. Paz sighs harshly. “No, Grogu, you first. Are you hurt?”

Grogu whines, but shakes his head.

“That’s good. Are you hungry?”

He hesitates for a moment, then nods.

Paz unslings his bag from his back and roots through it for a proper ration pack, and sets the kid up with the rations and a small bottle of electrolyte-dense juice; he hopes Grogu’s species even needs electrolytes.

Grogu lets him pull away this time, but scoots to the edge of the counter facing the head of the bed so he can keep careful watch over his caretaker as Paz pushes to his feet with a grunt. Maker, but he’s starting to feel his years.

He flicks on the medscanner in his vambrace before he gets started, because it’s older than the Empire and needs a few minutes to boot up completely. While he waits, he starts pulling out everything he needs to jury-rig a saline drip — he doesn’t need the medscanner to tell him Din’s dehydrated.

Paz does his best to keep his eyes below their chin, praying that they can forgive him for not putting their _buy'ce_ back on; while Din is one of the most practical people Paz has ever met, their adherence to the Creed has always been more important than their life. 

He checks their pulse at their throat, and tells himself that it isn’t to find that scar and run his fingers along the first time he had almost lost them.

The medscanner beeps, rooting Paz back in the present, and he realises it's already done its job, the readout of Din’s vitals scrolling over the screen on his wrist. He gets as far down as _bruised spine_ before stopping to yank on disposable gloves and finagle the IV line into the back of Din’s hand. He hooks the saline bag over the unused curtain rail as he has to tamp down his quickly-growing panic, and only when his heartbeat settles does Paz steel himself and look over the readout properly.

They have a headwound on the side Paz can’t see that should be much worse, clearly having been given some sort of bacta treatment, and Paz is a little amazed Din had even survived it long enough to get medical attention. Their left shoulder had been dis- and then relocated, bruises spidering down their whole arm until Paz can see a few of them peeking out from their sleeve; he thinks it might be whipcord bruising, but Din should know better than to wrap their own grappling line around their arm. 

Paz lets out a little huff of relief that their bruised spine isn’t nearly as bad as he’d feared, so he —very— carefully rolls them over onto their back. It looks like they had tried to get the blood out of their hair in the sonic on the Razor Crest, and though it could do with another scrub in actual water, they had done a good enough job that Paz can poke around and confirm that the wound on their crown hadn’t been bleeding. Next, he checks their pupils, which seem to dilate normally and he isn’t too worried about a concussion; the bacta should have taken care of that, though Paz would still like to get them looked over in an actual hospital for anything more insidious that the scanner wasn’t programmed to catch.

Crouching at his bag again, Paz finds a roll of wide gauze that he layers three times over, before cutting it from the roll to lay over the top half of Din’s face: there’s not a chance in Corellian Hells that Paz is going to try getting their helm back on, not until he knows they’re even going to survive sitting up, so this modicum of privacy will have to do. Especially because now Paz needs to take off their shirt.

Grogu chirps behind him, leaning around Paz’s bulk as he munches on a piece of jerky; he watches Paz closely as he untucks Din’s shirt from their trousers, pushing it up just enough to check on the several sizeable lacerations the medscanner had warned him about.

Despite it looking a little slapdash, Din had done an alright job fixing themself up, only one bacta patch peeling at the edges. They’re shitty patches, though, the kind you find for a couple of credits anywhere in the galaxy, and if they have a bacta content higher than 1%, Paz will eat his entire cuirass.

The one that’s peeling is the worst of the lot, the adhesive having given way under the blood still dribbling out of a nasty-looking puncture wound below their bottom rib, and by some miracle it isn’t infected yet. To be fair, Paz’s bacta isn’t much better, but it _is_ better, so after checking that Grogu is still entertained with his food, he starts to change all the dressings, with two staples and an extra glop of bacta gel for the still-bleeding puncture. The last few days notwithstanding, it looks like Din’s been eating alright, and Paz supposes having a foundling around _would_ make them remember meals more often, but it’s still a relief to see it.

Not that Paz had worried about it, Din is horrifyingly practical, after all.

The kid burbles at him, catching his attention by holding out the bottle of juice that he seems to be having trouble opening. With a fond snort, Paz breaks the seal and passes it back, making sure Grogu can hold it properly before he returns to the bag on the floor in search of vitamin stims; Paz doesn’t have nutrient replacers, those are kriffing expensive and he doubts anyone on Tatooine can even afford to _sell_ them, so they’ll have to make do with actual food once Din is awake.

Finding the stim he’s looking for, Paz pops the cap off the needle and leans up on his knees to swipe a swab of disinfectant over the side of Din’s neck before sticking them with it. After the stim clicks at him to signal it’s empty, Paz immediately puts the needle in the disposal pod he keeps in his medkit, all too aware of small curious hands that get into things they shouldn’t.

When Paz moves to put a tiny plaster on their injection site, he startles to find Din’s hazy brown eyes watching him in bewilderment, one hand pushing the gauze up their forehead.

_“Ruus’alor?”_ Din slurs, their blinking slow and pinched in pain, all while Paz’s stomach drops through the floor; he hasn’t been this scared since the Imps descended on Nevarro. _“Me’bana...?”_

Belatedly, Paz realises Din likely isn’t even fully conscious and probably won’t remember this later, which is for the best considering he doesn’t think they’ve noticed they’re helmetless. 

He swallows thickly, and admits to himself that he hadn’t thought he’d get to see them again, after Nevarro, much less hear them speak to him again. Even if the covert hadn’t splintered, Paz had almost violated Din in the worst way, in front of half the tribe; would Din have even come back to the covert after that?

Din’s gaze moves slowly around the room, passing over a whining Grogu like he doesn’t exist, and yeah, there’s no way they’re going to remember this.

_“Nuhoy, verd’ika,”_ Paz says softly, reaching over Din to gently pull their hand away from their head, and fixes the gauze back over their face; he's done pretending that it wouldn’t break him to lose the last of their covert, the last of House Vizsla. _“Meh gar kyrayc, shuk bah ni.” Sleep, soldier. You’re no good to me dead._

**Author's Note:**

> fancast of paz (not that favreau and tait aren't wonderful) is winston duke, who is 6'5" and i think would have great (non-shippy) onscreen chemistry with pedro pascal  
> title from [WEATHER by Koste,](https://open.spotify.com/track/3hf5r1OIN6yXEeyJlvuGGa?si=o_uBEeUfSpKgbW9KbdT7rA) but [empty crown by YAS](https://open.spotify.com/track/3OG2n87s38Hm4TTpEOsRI8?si=p6zYZMpWRRCSqF0jPqlqjA) is an excellent accompaniment as well  
> for @/bluebells for their unparalleled contributions to the dinpaz tag, @/iwoulddieforobi-wankenobi for being hype in my notes the other day, and @/theclonewarsbrokeme ‘cause they let me talk through actual hours of world-building and fact-checking and timeline-ing.
> 
> *in reference to the Mando’a word for the dead/deceased “taab'echaaj'la”, or “marched far away”, best explained in the Mando’a tribute to dead comrades, “not gone, merely marching far away”.


End file.
